Jaguars Claw Back

Patrick Mahomes was vintage Mahomes on Monday night. And the question for the Jacksonville Jaguars the past few years has been if Trevor Lawrence could ever rise to that level.

He did. After he was knocked down first.

Mahomes had a clutch drive to give the Chiefs a 28-24 lead with 1:45 to go. Instead of Mahomes having the final say in a close game, as he usually does, it was Lawrence who came up with the clutch drive to win it.

Lawrence, on his 26th birthday, had one of the biggest moments of his career, leading the Jaguars to a 31-28 win in the final minute.

The winning play looked like a disaster, when Lawrence was tripped up when his guard stepped on his foot and the QB went to the ground, but he got up after stumbling again, found a lane and ran in for a 10-yard touchdown.

“It was panic, sheer panic on the ground trying to [get up],” Lawrence told ESPN in a postgame interview. “We didn’t have any timeouts, I got stepped on coming out. I was like, ‘I gotta get up.’ And I was just going to throw it out of bounds to stop the clock.”

Luckily for the Jaguars, he kept his feet moving.

Jacksonville had been waiting for a moment like that, with Lawrence leading a comeback win against the Chiefs dynasty on a Monday night. The Jaguars are 4-1 in Liam Coen’s first season as their head coach. Monday’s win felt like more than a typical Week 5 win.

If the Jaguars set out to make an immediate statement that their 3-1 start was for real, it didn’t begin too well.

Jacksonville went three-and-out to start the game. The Chiefs scored first, on a touchdown to Travis Kelce that looked like it could be offensive pass interference on JuJu Smith-Schuster, who collided with a Jaguars defender. Officials threw a flag. The announcers in the ESPN booth thought it was a penalty. But the officials picked up the flag and ruled it a TD, presumably saying the contact happened within a yard of the line of scrimmage. The Chiefs led 7-0.

The Jaguars almost tied it after that, but Lawrence reached out on fourth-and-goal from the one on a quarterback sneak over the top, and the ball was knocked out of his hands inches before he crossed the plane. The Jaguars were turned away, and then the Chiefs had a quick, 97-yard drive for another touchdown, this one a touchdown run by Mahomes.

The Jaguars were getting a closeup on national television and were behind 14-0. But they showed some resilience. Jacksonville got on the board, with Lawrence delivering a nice touchdown pass to Parker Washington. It was 14-7 at halftime. Early in the second half, Travis Hunter made a phenomenal catch in traffic for a 44-yard gain and the first huge highlight of his rookie season. That set up a Lawrence touchdown run and the game was tied 14–14. Then the Jaguars got a massive play off a rare Mahomes turnover. He never saw Jaguars linebacker Devin Lloyd underneath near the goal line, and threw it right to him. Then it got worse for the Chiefs, as Lloyd ran it all the way down the sideline for a 99-yard, pick 6. Instead of the Chiefs taking the lead, the Jaguars led 21-14.

The Jaguars gave away points, with Lawrence throwing an interception deep in Chiefs territory, but Jacksonville rebounded and took a 24-21 lead on a Cam Little field goal. But there was plenty of time left for Mahomes to answer.

Mahomes had a wild escape on a play in which it looked like he was sacked but he kept his balance and ran for a first down. The drive kept going deep into Jaguars territory inside the two-minute warning. KC capped the march with a 2-yard Kareem Hunt TD run, setting the stage for Lawrence with 1:48 remaining.